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Product Tour

A quick look at what you will be working with before you install.

The board view

The default board shows five status columns: Backlog, To Do, In Progress, Review, Done. Column count and names are fully configurable per board.

  • Drag cards between columns
  • Sort within columns by priority, due date, or creation date
  • Minimize or hide columns from the column menu
  • Switch between horizontal and vertical layouts
  • Custom background themes, zoom controls (75–150%)
Kanban Lite board showing five columns with cards

Card editor

Kanban Lite inline card editor with markdown body and metadata panel

Each card opens a split-view editor or a right-side drawer. Edit the markdown body inline while the metadata panel stays visible.

  • Priority, assignee, due date, labels
  • Comments and timestamped logs
  • File attachments
  • Named actions (trigger webhooks, CI, deploys)
  • Structured forms with per-card saved data

Full cards guide →

Card detail view

Click any card to open its detail panel. The right-side drawer shows every field at a glance while the board stays visible behind it.

  • Status, priority, assignee, due date, and labels
  • File attachments with drag-and-drop upload
  • Tabbed body view: Preview, Edit, Comments, Logs
  • Advanced metadata section for custom key-value pairs
Kanban Lite card detail panel showing metadata, labels, attachments, and tabbed body
The card detail drawer with metadata fields, attachments, and tabbed content.

Search & filtering

The toolbar search works in exact and fuzzy mode. Type a query, or use structured tokens to narrow by metadata field:

meta.team: backend

Filters appear as removable chips. Click a label or a metadata value in the card panel to inject the filter automatically.

Kanban Lite board filtered by search query showing matching cards
Search results shown as a filtered board with removable filter chips.

Full search guide →

Storage is just markdown

Every card is a plain .md file. YAML frontmatter stores metadata; the body is free-form markdown. No hidden database, no binary blob, no migration required to get started.

---
title: Ship dark mode
status: in-progress
priority: high
assignee: alice
labels: [frontend, ux]
dueDate: "2026-04-01"
---

## Context
Users have been requesting this for two sprints.

## Acceptance criteria
- [ ] Follows system preference by default
- [ ] Manual toggle in settings

Swap to SQLite or MySQL with a single config line when you need concurrent write performance. Storage plugin docs →

Settings panel

Kanban Lite settings panel with card display toggles, layout options, and zoom controls
The settings panel with display, layout, and zoom options.

Open the settings panel to customise the board to your workflow. Changes are saved automatically and apply to all connected clients.

  • Toggle card badges: priority, assignee, due date, labels, filename
  • Layout: right-side drawer or split editor, drawer width slider
  • Background style and preset themes
  • Board and card-detail zoom (75–150%)
  • Compact mode for high-density boards

Dark mode

Kanban Lite ships with a full dark theme. Toggle it from the toolbar or let it follow your system preference automatically.

Kanban Lite board in dark mode showing all columns and cards
The board in dark mode.

All four interfaces

Every interface ships in the same package. No add-ons, no separate installs.

Web UI

React board, WebSocket sync, drag-and-drop. kl serve

CLI

Every board operation available from the terminal. kl --help

REST API

OpenAPI JSON API with interactive Swagger UI at /api/docs.

MCP

Full board operations for AI agents. kl mcp

Get started → Cards & Workflows →